


guts of a guppy

by lovelylogans



Series: 13 days of halloween [6]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (maybe), Adversarial sibling relationship, Carnival, Childhood sweethearts royality, Clowns, Gen, M/M, Scary Clowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 10:20:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21160067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelylogans/pseuds/lovelylogans
Summary: Part of the appeal of the carnival—most of the reason Remus wanted tocomeso bad—was the fact that performers wandered the trails, marked on the maps. Zombies and witches and...Clowns.Patton’sbiggestfear is clowns. To the point that when he and Patton were playing Knight/Prince Roman and Prince Patton during recess, some people in their grade were justtalkingabout clowns once, nice and friendly clowns without pictures or anything, and Patton had started crying because he was so scared.So the clown path is to be avoided at all costs.or: they do not succeed, and how roman handles that.





	guts of a guppy

**Author's Note:**

> _Oh God. Look at this fucking clown. Of course…it had to be a clown! No, wait. It **had** to be a clown. And it **had** to be Wichita up there to make me realize that some rules… are meant to be broken. Time to nut up or shut up_. _Fuck this clown_.
> 
> _-zombieland, _columbus
> 
> so, this is for the 13 days of halloween prompt over at [@sanderssidescelebrations](erssidescelebrations.tumblr.com/post/187843455281/sanders-sides-spooky-month)! today’s prompt is **haunted house! **based on events from my own life. _i was like eight okay what was i supposed to do_

Roman is so excited that he might just scream!!!

Okay, he’s screamed already! But he might scream again!!! Because he’s seeing _Patton_ in _person_ for the first time since Patton moved away at the end of the summer, and they’re going to a _fair,_ with rollercoasters and hayrides and cotton candy and _Patton his bestest friend in the whole entire world!!!_

And he does scream when he sees Patton, but Patton screams too so it’s okay and it’s fun and he gives Patton the biggest longest hug _ever_, because Patton is _here!!!! _And then Patton takes Roman’s hand and Roman feels butterflies burst in his stomach and then they both start giggling so hard that they nearly fall over.

Seeing Patton makes Roman so happy and so excited that it almost doesn’t even _matter_ that his gross stinky brother brought along _Dee_ as his friend to the carnival, even though Dee always says things to Roman that he _thinks_ might be insults because he and Remus snicker afterward but Roman can never figure out _what_ and then he just feels stupid, but. Patton’s here! So he doesn’t have to spend time with his brother if he doesn’t want to! And he _really!_ Doesn’t! Want! To!

His parents distribute communication devices, maps of the park, and allowance, as well as talking about meeting places and time to leave. Patton nods along, and beams up at Roman’s mother when she coos at him and pinches his cheek, because Patton’s secret superpower is enchanting parents to adore him, and then they split up: his parents for a restaurant, Remus and Dee to probably skulk around the haunted house, and Patton tugs Roman to a picnic table so they can sit down and chart out the night.

“Okay,” Patton says, and Roman gets out a glittery pink gel pen in order to star the rides they want to go on and map out a path—Logan, Patton’s brother, would be very proud of him, he thinks—and Patton falters.

“Ro?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t mind if we don’t... I mean, if we take long paths, right?” Patton asks anxiously, squirming where he sat. “It’s just—“

“No, that’s super okay,” Roman says reassuringly. 

Part of the appeal of the carnival—most of the reason Remus wanted to _come_ so bad—was the fact that performers wandered the trails, marked on the maps. Zombies and witches and...

Clowns.

Patton’s _biggest_ fear is clowns. To the point that when he and Patton were playing Knight/Prince Roman and Prince Patton during recess, some people in their grade were just _talking_ about clowns once, nice and friendly clowns without pictures or anything, and Patton had started crying because he was so scared.

So the clown path is to be avoided at all costs.

“Okay,” Roman says, and they bend their heads together to plot out their night.

And it’s _fun._ Roman hears about Patton’s new school, and they split a funnel cake and kettle popcorn and a _massive_ thing of cotton candy and a big bottle of water that Roman carries in his free hand, and they ride the ferris wheel and the tilt-a-whirl and bumper cars and rollercoasters and the tunnel of love and the scrambler and the carousel, where Patton finds a unicorn and Roman finds a suitably knightly horse.

_Sure,_ an actor leaps out from behind a corner and makes Roman scream and then he sees his brother snickering and running away and he shrieks “REMUS!” and he will _definitely_ be trying to figure out some kind of payback that will be suitably unsettling to him, which is _very_ hard to do with Remus—the kind of boy who delights in putting spiders down Roman’s shirt and whose room smells like a combination of the most _dis-gust-iiiiing_ things Roman’s ever sniffed before is hard to prank, but Roman will find _something._

It’s fun. It’s great. It’s time with _Patton,_ who Roman has missed so much that it feels like he’s a helium balloon now that he’s with him again, but then—

“_Attention, attention,”_ a voice blares, “_the carnival will close in thirty minutes. Again, the carnival will close in thirty minutes.”_

Patton droops, and Roman doesn’t feel far off either. 

“We should get back to your parents,” Patton mumbles.

Roman squeezes tight at his hand, and fidgets with the water bottle in his other hand, twisting and untwisting the cap, just a little. “We’ll see each other again soon,” he says, trying to make himself sound more confident than he actually is—Patton lives a forty-five minute drive away now, so it’ll be a while. “And we can email and that kind of thing!”

Patton smiles, just a little. “Yeah,” he says, and then clears his throat, smiling bigger. “Yeah,” he says, more convincingly happy, “we can email! It’s not like we can’t talk at _all.”_

But it is very different from just leaning across a desk to get Patton’s attention. No more passing notes or after-school snack sessions or impromptu sessions of Knight/Prince Roman and Prince Patton at the park, but—

“Right,” Roman says, and adjusts his grip on the water bottle. “My parents. Let’s go.”

They don’t look at the map before they start walking.

It’s their fatal mistake.

Patton freezes in his path when they walk, and Roman blinks at him. “What?”

Patton points nervously, and Roman turns to read the sign.

_CLOWN CAUSEWAY._

_“Ah,”_ Roman says. “Right. Well, I’m sure we can just—”

Patton’s already mutely shaking his head, though, his hand trembling in Roman’s grasp.

“The path we used to get here is closed, I think,” Patton says, and swallows. “We have to go through this way.”

Roman takes a deep breath. Okay. Patton’s going to be scared. So Roman...

"Okay,” Roman says, and puffs out his chest. “Okay. Think of it like this, right? Prince Patton’s been abducted.”

“Right,” Patton says in a tiny voice.

“And Knight Roman’s gonna guide him back to the kingdom,” Roman says, catching on. “But—but there’s a curse on Prince Patton’s eyes, right? And he has to keep ‘em shut, but that’s okay, because Prince Roman’s gonna guide him on through. So if you just—“

Without prompting, Patton dives so that his head is buried deep into Roman’s shoulder, and Roman adjusts so that his arm is wrapped around Patton’s shoulders, swapping the water bottle to his other hand.

“Like that,” Roman says. “Just like that. And we’ll get back, and Alchemist Logan will brew up a potion that will fix your eyes, right?”

“Right,” Patton whimpers. 

“Okay,” Roman says. “Okay, let’s go.”

Roman keeps his eyes firmly fixed on the ground in front of them—he doesn’t want Patton to trip over anything, or run into anyone—and he can hear Patton’s tiny, tremulous gasps, trying to stay calm, and Roman tries his best to tune out the noisy carnival music, the high-pitched cackles of the clowns.

And he does, for the most part. He mumbles along additions to the story—”Prince Patton, we’re going past the Fearsome Forest!” and “Those dastardly wolves will pay for this!”—but he keeps quiet, and squeezes at Patton’s arm, and just takes it one step at a time.

“We’ll make it through this,” he says, “we’ll make it, we can just keep moving, we’ll make it just fine and it’ll be over soon.”

Patton sobs into Roman’s shoulder.

The next three things happen very quickly.

The first is the hand comes down onto their shoulders.

“Are you lost, little boys?” A voice growls, and both Roman and Patton turn to see who it is.

It’s a clown—a clown, with blood and bone gruesomely clear on his face, his smile stretched unnaturally wide across his face, teeth ground into sharp points, eyes a neon, cat-like yellow, leaning down so he can stare them in the eyes

The second is Patton’s deafening, blood-curdling scream, ringing loud and noisy into Roman’s right ear, and the immediate tears he bursts into at the sight of the clown, less than half a foot away from their face.

The third is Roman’s gut response—he hoists the water bottle up over his head, and slams it against the clown’s nose, half-peeled off his face. The clown reeled back, shouting, and Roman grabs Patton’s hand, yanking.

“RUN!” He hollers, and run they do.


End file.
